19
Jack Butler Yeats RHA (1871-1957)
Estimate:
€100,000 - €150,000
Sold
€115,000
Live Auction
Irish & International Art
Size
9 by 14in. (22.9 by 35.6cm)
Description
Title: A PASSAGE IS REQUIRED, 1953
Note: This late work of Jack B. Yeats depicts two figures negotiating with a boatman. The latter stands in the helm of his boat holding his oar. He is a familiar figure in Yeats's oeuvre. He derives from the ferryman of Dinish Island who took Yeats and J.M Synge around the islands of Connemara in 1905. Synge records the experience in his Manchester Guardian articles of 1905, republished in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara, 1910, illustrated by Yeats. The old man told the young men of his life in America and of his return to the West of Ireland where he would spend his remaining days ferrying passengers between the islands of the bay. Memories of this enigmatic encounter form the basis of one of Yeats's masterpieces, Many Ferries, (National Gallery of Ireland, 1948). The passengers are also familiar characters in Yeats's work. One wears a theatrical hat with a large feather in its brim. His dark eyes, black moustache and swarthy complexion recall the pirate characters who feature in Yeats's early plays such as The Scourge of the Guelph and in some of the illustrations to A Broadside. Next to him a woman wrapped in a traditional shawl resembles, according to Hilary Pyle, one of Yeats's early ballad singers. The dark stormy clouds and the shadowy forms of the foreground add to the drama. The green island in the distance, appears by comparison, calm and idyllic. The anachronistic title 'A Passage is Required' evokes a bygone age of adventure and intrigue. One wonders what has brought these two characters together and where they intend to travel. The journey across open water recalls the classical story of Charon who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. In Yeats's work, as in Beckett's writing, the journey rather the destination is crucial, acting as a powerful metaphor for life.The way in which Yeats has created the figures further adds to the intrigue. The use of thick impasto in the face and arm of the ferryman contrasts with thinner applications of pigment in the pirate and female figure. This makes them appear as ghostly apparitions rather than solid entities. Elsewhere in parts of the sea and in the construction of the pirate figure the paint has been scrapped or combed creating a horizontal rhythmic pattern. This disrupts the narrative and introduces a note of dissonance into the composition, asserting the physical fact of the painting. Dr. Róisín KennedyFebruary 2019
Note: This late work of Jack B. Yeats depicts two figures negotiating with a boatman. The latter stands in the helm of his boat holding his oar. He is a familiar figure in Yeats's oeuvre. He derives from the ferryman of Dinish Island who took Yeats and J.M Synge around the islands of Connemara in 1905. Synge records the experience in his Manchester Guardian articles of 1905, republished in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara, 1910, illustrated by Yeats. The old man told the young men of his life in America and of his return to the West of Ireland where he would spend his remaining days ferrying passengers between the islands of the bay. Memories of this enigmatic encounter form the basis of one of Yeats's masterpieces, Many Ferries, (National Gallery of Ireland, 1948). The passengers are also familiar characters in Yeats's work. One wears a theatrical hat with a large feather in its brim. His dark eyes, black moustache and swarthy complexion recall the pirate characters who feature in Yeats's early plays such as The Scourge of the Guelph and in some of the illustrations to A Broadside. Next to him a woman wrapped in a traditional shawl resembles, according to Hilary Pyle, one of Yeats's early ballad singers. The dark stormy clouds and the shadowy forms of the foreground add to the drama. The green island in the distance, appears by comparison, calm and idyllic. The anachronistic title 'A Passage is Required' evokes a bygone age of adventure and intrigue. One wonders what has brought these two characters together and where they intend to travel. The journey across open water recalls the classical story of Charon who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. In Yeats's work, as in Beckett's writing, the journey rather the destination is crucial, acting as a powerful metaphor for life.The way in which Yeats has created the figures further adds to the intrigue. The use of thick impasto in the face and arm of the ferryman contrasts with thinner applications of pigment in the pirate and female figure. This makes them appear as ghostly apparitions rather than solid entities. Elsewhere in parts of the sea and in the construction of the pirate figure the paint has been scrapped or combed creating a horizontal rhythmic pattern. This disrupts the narrative and introduces a note of dissonance into the composition, asserting the physical fact of the painting. Dr. Róisín KennedyFebruary 2019
Medium
oil on board
Signature
signed lower left; titled on reverse; also with typed Waddington Galleries label on reverse
Provenance
Waddington Galleries, Dublin;Private collection
Literature
Pyle, Hilary, Jack B. Yeats A Catalogue Raisonné of The Oil Paintings, London 1992, No. 1146, page 1048, illustrated.
Exhibited
This late work of Jack B. Yeats depicts two figures negotiating with a boatman. The latter stands in the helm of his boat holding his oar. He is a familiar figure in Yeats's oeuvre. He derives from the ferryman of Dinish Island who took Yeats and J.M Synge around the islands of Connemara in 1905. Synge records the experience in his Manchester Guardian articles of 1905, republished in Wicklow, West Kerry and Connemara, 1910, illustrated by Yeats. The old man told the young men of his life in America and of his return to the West of Ireland where he would spend his remaining days ferrying passengers between the islands of the bay. Memories of this enigmatic encounter form the basis of one of Yeats's masterpieces, Many Ferries, (National Gallery of Ireland, 1948). The passengers are also familiar characters in Yeats's work. One wears a theatrical hat with a large feather in its brim. His dark eyes, black moustache and swarthy complexion recall the pirate characters who feature in Yeats's early plays such as The Scourge of the Guelph and in some of the illustrations to A Broadside. Next to him a woman wrapped in a traditional shawl resembles, according to Hilary Pyle, one of Yeats's early ballad singers. The dark stormy clouds and the shadowy forms of the foreground add to the drama. The green island in the distance, appears by comparison, calm and idyllic. The anachronistic title 'A Passage is Required' evokes a bygone age of adventure and intrigue. One wonders what has brought these two characters together and where they intend to travel. The journey across open water recalls the classical story of Charon who ferried the souls of the dead across the river Styx to Hades. In Yeats's work, as in Beckett's writing, the journey rather the destination is crucial, acting as a powerful metaphor for life.The way in which Yeats has created the figures further adds to the intrigue. The use of thick impasto in the face and arm of the ferryman contrasts with thinner applications of pigment in the pirate and female figure. This makes them appear as ghostly apparitions rather than solid entities. Elsewhere in parts of the sea and in the construction of the pirate figure the paint has been scrapped or combed creating a horizontal rhythmic pattern. This disrupts the narrative and introduces a note of dissonance into the composition, asserting the physical fact of the painting. Dr. Róisín KennedyFebruary 2019
